Page:The West Indies, and Other Poems.djvu/75

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To giant strength in unshorn manhood grown,

He haunts the wilderness, he dwells alone.

A tigress with her whelps to seize him sprung,

He tears the mother, and he tames the young

In the drear cavern of their native rock ;

Thither wild slaves and fell banditti flock ;

He heads their hordes ; they burst, like toriid rains.

In death and devastation o'er the plains ;

Stronger arnl holder grows his ruffian band.

Prouder his heart, more terrible his hand.

He spreads his banner ; crowding from afar.

Innumerable armies rush to war ;

Resistless as the pillar'd whirlwinds fly

O'er Lybian sands, revolving to the sky.

In fire and wrath through every realm they run,

Where the noon-shadow shrinks beneath the sun ;

Till at the Conqueror's feet from sea to sea,

A hundred nations bow the servile knee.

And throned in nature's unreveal'd domains,

The Jenghis Khan of Africa he reigns.

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